I know an important part of the story is having conflict, and clear obstacles to overcome. I'm trying to work with a main character dealing with an existential crisis --that sense of belonging and place in the world.

That's not much of a visible obstacle to overcome...

For all you working on Dramas out there, how are you getting visible conflict and tension from internal hangups and angst?

I am (somewhat) taking the easy way out: the first scene of inner turmoil uses voiceovers. The MC has just moved and is intently slashing apart his boxes with a boxcutter while narrating his desolation. He suffers from social anxiety, so in other scenes, he tenses up around people and is usually pressed against a wall, trying to disappear. He also stares into space a lot. Staring off (usually into a window) is a telltale sign of Really Deep Thought. I usually precede it with a tangible reminder of his insecurities, like watching people interacting normally on the street.

My advice is to analyze your MC's insecurities. They may contain clues to help you along in your script. Good luck!

One of the scenes in my graphic novel has my character discouraged to pass beneath a huge boulder overhead that appears to be on the very brink of falling. My character struggles with gaining the courage to pass under the large rock. On the other side, the boulder is seen to be connected to an even larger, very stable construct.

Going through a tumultous ordeal of some sort and later seeing it as petty is what I used to make discouragement visible. It was all in the way my character welcomed the inner negative talk as to why his discouragement built up so huge in his mind. He chose to see things that way.

In the end, he learns to kick out discouragement and keep to the brighter side of things.

jade

Also, people tend to externalize their internal issues by having seemingly irrational or exaggerated responses circumstances that "touch a nerve" by relating to their internal problem. Often times, people don't even realize they're doing that.
To use an example from my life: I flew off the handle at someone who was milking the symptoms of their minor ailment for attention. As this person's behavior didn't affect my life, or hurt anyone else, it seemingly made no sense that I would be so angry. When one of my friends asked me why I was so upset, I couldn't even tell her why-- I just said it was wrong for someone to fake illness, etc. After I thought about it a little more though, I realized I got so mad because I have serious health issues which I keep quiet about, and that people had told me to ignore for a long time.
So if you combine context (the things that create the character's internal conflict) with behavior (such as seemingly non-sequiter outbursts or other out-of-character behavior) in response to similar issues, the audience will have a pretty good idea of what's going on in the character's head.

Thanks all, great suggestions! It seems like movies really shine in the dramatic moments when they can couch them in something else...

I agree with fidheallir. One of my characters is having major problems with an aspect of herself and so she takes out on the main character by reversing her position on their relationship. Instead of outright saying what her problem is she reverses her compliments by giving insults thereby negating anything good she ever said about the MC, she is also the MC's prof so she sabotages her work and takes whole percentages off of the MC's final mark. She goes from loving and kind to hateful, violent and nasty. She publicly humiliates and sabotages the MC, goes from saying loving and kind things to arguing to begging to still be able to love the MC and then threatening her in secret to sabotaging her and emotionally abusing her in front of people when she writes a short story and acts in a play that touches upon her issue. It is bordering on tragic actually.